Хавьер Мариас: When I Was Mortal

Victims of mistaken identity, sponging relatives, amateur sleuths, eavesdroppers, professional liars, assassins, and failed bodyguards populate the short stories in When I Was Mortal. Plots turn on curious exigencies — a woman about to star in her first porn film, a night doctor who adds new meaning to «specialist», a ghost whose neglect is greatly resented. «In the space of ten or twenty pages,» as the Nouvel Observateur remarked, «Marias contrives to write a novel.» «The short story fits Marias like a glove,» as Le Point noted, and these stories have been acclaimed as «dazzling» (The London Times Literary Supplement), «formidably intelligent» (The London Review of Books), and «startling» (The New York Times Book Review).